Hot Topics:

62

Shares

Email this story to a friend

Just having described President Obama‘s second inauguration as “the second coming,” Newsweek‘s latest cover (digital only) calls outgoing State Secretary Hillary Clinton “the most powerful woman in American history.”

[S]he is now, for the first time in a very, very long time, just one of us.

The images amuse because, of course, she’s not just one of us. She’s been the most famous and admired woman in America for 20 years. A December Gallup poll had her as the most admired woman in the world, and No. 2 on the list (Michelle Obama) wasn’t remotely close. Not everyone is in on this love-fest, as we well know, by a long shot. But even the seething hatred has, over the years, embroidered her legend—debates about Clinton have somehow always ended up really being about us as a nation, who we are and who we want to be, in such a way that even those who dislike her are implicitly acknowledging that, yes, she is the touchstone.